De Bruijn, a Dutchman resident in Paris for a decade, told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had “no doubt” that an assault on him and his boyfriend, who was punched in the face as they walked arm-in-arm, was a homophobic attack.

Gay rights issues have divided France in recent months as President Francois Hollande has pushed through a bill to legalize gay marriage despite angry street protests.

The law, backed by two in three people in surveys, is set to pass without major hitches in a parliament where Hollande’s Socialists have a majority.

Yet a passionate debate, particularly on whether same-sex couples should have parenting rights, has triggered a surge in verbal and physical attacks on the gay community, according to records kept by the campaign group SOS Homophobie.

The group has recorded more than 60 reports of homophobic attacks, two to three times higher than normal, in the past week as the bill makes its final passage through the Senate.

“It feels like the most violent time in our history,” said Michael Bouvard, vice-president of SOS Homophobie.

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On Sunday night, a hall used during the day for a festival of lesbian, gay and transgender associations in the gay-friendly Marais district of central Paris was vandalized and plastered with posters for the vocal anti-gay marriage lobby.

The “Protest for Everyone” movement, led by the comedian Frigide Barjot, has united tens of thousands of Roman Catholics, evangelical Christians and Muslims.

De Bruijn said the heated nature of the debate was encouraging violence.

“It wasn’t Frigide Barjot who hit my boyfriend, but you can’t ignore the narrow-minded speeches being made,” he said.

France, traditionally Catholic and socially conservative, is opening up slowly to acceptance of gays and lesbians, with a trickle of public figures now openly homosexual.

The law giving same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children is now being debated in the Senate after being adopted by the lower house in February after 110 hours of debate.